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Thursday, October 31, 2013

Toys, toys, toys!

The upside of moving is that I have finally, finally conquered the toy beast.

Between Seven's plastic allergy (and the tossing out that had to be done), purging, flooding, and just plain clearing out, I have been able to pare down to the barest of essentials when it comes to the items designated for play.

I can't tell you how much happier I am now that nothing in my house is shaped like a miniature electric guitar that lights up and plays show tunes when you push its buttons, or has Dora's face emblazoned on it, or screams at me from the shelves of Fred Meyer to buy Just One More! to add to the collection of fifty others littering the floor of my living room.

We still have Legos. And teeny tiny little wood doll house pieces. But we have been selective-- purposeful-- in what we've let into our home. And y'all, it has been so freeing. Not seeing a mound of seldom-used junk cluttering up the house and, in truth, my kids' imaginations ... it's just priceless.

There is hope, folks. There is hope.

Here are a couple of posts that have encouraged me in regards to the choices we've made as a family:

4 comments:

We made similar changes when we moved to Brazil. It wasn't on purpose at first, but we've gotten much better at keeping around intentional toys, things that inspire imagination instead of dictate their role in things.

We have legos, wooden toy food sets, a few cars, a few super hero figures (no plastic allergy, and the creativity these foster in my youngest is worth it), and then more legos & other building blocks. Not quite as minimalist as yours, but so much better than it was for us before.

I have such a hard time purging Bee's toys. Purging stuff is usually my thing, but I fall far short of the mark with her. It has been on my mind as something I need to deal with, though, so this is a timely post for me.